1984 END OF SEASON
Fresh off the disappointment of 1983, the Texas Rangers are forging ahead all the same, with an awesome new logo. I think that's the best one the Rangers have had, IMO.
We've continued our great regular season history in Texas by winning the AL West again in 1984. I don't know how many years that is in a row now but it's a lot. Reminding myself to check later...
Even with the restriction of only having players who actually played for the Rangers on my team, I still seem to find enough guys to make a nice balanced roster that I like. With the nature of re-calc, players ratings are jumping up and down, especially the fielding ratings in some of the important positions. I found myself at the start of 1984 without a competent CF, so I dug through the game and Baseball Reference to find
Gary Pettis, who won 5 Gold Gloves at CF including one for Texas.
Some good years from my batters this time around, with Juan Beniquez winning the batting title with a .373 AVG, and Harold Baines, Brian Downing, and Buddy Bell also putting up good numbers. Our pitching numbers seem to be a bit more humdrum than I'm used to, but our runs against is still good for 2nd in the league. I guess league-wide scoring is starting to tick up in 1984.
Some familiar faces in the playoffs again, as the Red Sox are our opponents and the Mets and Dodgers square off in the NL. I swear I've seen something like this before. Anyway, there's definitely some teams that keep winning in my universe, and this years' playoff teams plus the Orioles come to mind first.
Goose Gossage was pitching great again from the pen but picked up an injury that will see him miss the playoffs. He's kind of had a mostly-awful playoff record that cost us a lot of games, so we won't get a chance to see if that continues. Is that a thing that's even coded into OOTP? Just bad luck? Either way it's just like real sports. In the meantime our bullpen is looking a bit weak and we'll be relying on our starters to go deep.
I don't have huge expectations and hopes like I did last season, and Boston won more games and should be favoured to come out of the AL. We'll see!